


Form 42-D/85 – Form 42-D/86

by raiining



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fix-It, Jasper Sitwell is my hero, M/M, Secret Marriage, pining!Clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: The One Where Clint and Phil Get Married for a Mission and Clint Stews About It, For Years</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Summary:</p>
<p>Clint and Phil have been secretly married since the first year they worked together at S.H.I.E.L.D.  Clint mostly tries not to think about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Form 42-D/85 – Form 42-D/86

**Author's Note:**

> The second of three fics I wrote/finished while on holidays in January and completely inspired by trope-bingo, even though I don't have a trope-bingo card (I don't want one! I don't go on vacation that often!) 
> 
> Beta'd by the EVER FABULOUS RALKANA, who is my hero in all things.

It was a stupid mission.

A drug lord from the Southwestern States was set to meet a contact in Vancouver about shipping rights. It should have been the D.E.A.’s job to track him across the border, but the contact was a crony from HYDRA, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been notified. Clint and Coulson were still figuring out how to work together effectively, ten months after Coulson had shot Clint and then recruited him into S.H.I.E.L.D., and Fury gave them the job. It was a little different from their usual “Here, Barton, go shoot some people” kind of work, where Coulson sat in the van and was mostly a voice in Clint’s ear, but it showed that S.H.I.E.L.D. really meant it when they said they’d train him up to full agent status.

So Clint agreed and Coulson nodded, and they took off in a S.H.I.E.L.D. car to follow the suspect.

Everything was going fine. Clint and Coulson really did work well together – S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to farm him out to a few other handlers, but no one understood Clint like Coulson did. When Clint had gotten himself shot on a op in Tokyo – after successfully completing the mission, Clint liked to point out – Coulson had taken his name out of the general pool and assumed sole control of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s newest acquisition. 

Clint had been more than okay with that. He’d been nursing a simmering crush on his handler since the man had tracked him across three cities over four months, hit him with a precision shot, and then offered him a job with S.H.I.E.L.D. It had nothing to do with Coulson’s warm hands and kind eyes and the way he said “Good job, Barton,” like he _knew_ Clint had never heard the words before in his life. 

Nothing at all.

It was just that Coulson was kind of a secret badass, and that really got Clint’s motor running.

So he was assigned to Coulson full time and Coulson usually got the best kind of missions, but this one was more of a vacation, really. A chance to practice his infiltration skills, which – if Clint was being honest with himself – were a little rusty.

They tailed the target to Vancouver, arguing in the car about rest stops and chocolate-versus-powered donuts (apparently Coulson had a _thing_ for road-side snacks), and discovered where Brooks was meeting his contact. 

That was when everything went to hell. 

Clint stared at Coulson, who was standing in their hotel room. The senior agent had dressed down for the infiltration job, ready for the the muggy Vancouver air in a white cotton button-up shirt with an open collar and loose but tailored gray pants. 

Clint was having a little trouble concentrating.

“Could you please repeat that, sir?”

“I _said_ ,” Coulson stressed, looking a little tight around the eyes, “that Brooks is meeting with his HYDRA contact on a cruise ship tonight, in four hours.”

Clint nodded, because that had been in the mission briefing. “Yeah, okay, and – ”

“And the cruise ship is for married couples only, proof of license required.”

Clint blinked at him. “Okay,” he said, more to buy himself time to think than because he agreed with the situation. “S.H.I.E.L.D. can fax us over a paper with our aliases on it, can’t they? Gay marriage is legal in Canada.”

Coulson’s lips quirked in a humorless smile. “It is,” he said, “And they can. Except the cruise ship is being run on the sly by Bilagasem’s drug cartel, so only people with ties to him or HYDRA are being let on board.”

Clint stared at his handler. “Well, fuck,” he said eloquently.

“Exactly,” Coulson agreed without inflection. “Our contact says they aren’t using reservations, but they are checking ID’s.” He took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself, which was ridiculous because Coulson was the most steady person Clint knew. “I have occasionally worked with HYDRA under my real name, when engaged in S.H.I.E.L.D. operations in the past.” Coulson told him.

Clint blinked. He stared at his handler. “Oh, no.” Clint said, cottoning on. “ _Hell_ , no.”

“You have done work for Brooks’s people in the past. Five years ago, when you were a merc, on the the Rolessi job,” Coulson reminded him.

“Fuck me,” Clint groaned, more because he hated the fact that Coulson knew about the Rolessi job than anything else. That work had been rough. “Do you know my entire fucking file off the top of your head?”

Coulson quirked an eyebrow, his face moving in what might have been a smile, if he weren’t looking so grim. “Should I say no to make you feel better?” he asked.

“No,” Clint sighed, reaching up to rub a hand over his head. “You always tell it to me straight, Coulson, and I respect that.” He took a deep breath. “Okay. So we need to get married.” It wasn’t a question.

Coulson nodded. “We need to get married,” he agreed.

They got married.

It wasn’t a big ceremony – the fax came through from S.H.I.E.L.D. and fuck if Marissa from Legal wasn’t going to have fun with this – and they both signed it. One piece of paper was the fake marriage license and the other was an internal S.H.I.E.L.D. document. This kind of thing had to have happened before, because “Form 42-D/85” explained that “marriages entered into for the purpose of active operations will be respected S.H.I.E.L.D. and all other national and international government agencies until such time as Form 42-D/86 is filed at the completion of said operations”. 

The date on the license had been set for this day but several years before, and Coulson looked at Clint with something like a grin hovering around the corner of his upper lip. 

“Happy anniversary,” he said.

“Fuck you, Coulson,” Clint growled, because seeing his name written beside Coulson’s on a marriage license was going to be harder for him to take than he had originally thought. 

“I think if we’re going to do this, you had better call me Phil,” Coulson said to him.

Clint glared. “Fuck. You. _Phil_ ,” he said, then groaned. “That sounded weird. This is awful. I’m going to give us both away and get us shot.”

Coulson did that thing with his face that meant he was trying not to roll his eyes. “You aren’t going to get us shot, Barton.”

Clint shot him a look. “If we’re going to do this,” he mimicked, “you should call me _Clint_.”

Coulson nodded and held his eyes. “Clint,” he said. Then swore. “Fuck, this is going to be hard.”

Clint laughed humorlessly, because this was so perfect – they couldn’t even say each other’s _names_. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Coulson closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Clint could almost see him centering himself, and watched, intrigued. Finally, Coulson opened his eyes and looked up. 

“Okay, Clint,” he said, and it was _eerie_ , how he did that. Like Coulson had just _willed_ himself to be okay with this, and suddenly he _was_. “I think we should get going.” 

Clint stared at his handler, and then figured – what the hell? He closed his own eyes and concentrated, thinking _Phil Phil Phil. His name is Phil. Call him Phil or he’s going to get shot._ When he opened his eyes, he met his handler’s gaze across the room and said, in the calmest voice he could muster, “Sounds good, Phil.”

The short version was – they got the job done.

Sneaking onto the cruise ship was relatively easy – they bought tickets at the vendor, showed their marriage license and ID’s to the man who asked, and walked on board. The local government registrar – as per Form 42-D/85, Clint assumed – had been notified of the upcoming check, and they were ready. Before they reached their cabin, they had been greeted by two contacts who knew them each by name. The men had managed to reference not only Clint’s Rolessi job, but also Phil’s nebulous contacts within HYDRA in a single, slightly wandering conversation. 

Both Clint and Phil gave the appropriate responses and were allowed to retire to their cabin. They settled in, each taking a drawer in the dresser and filling it with the appropriate vacation-like clothes they had bought last minute before boarding the ship. The room had one bed, of course, and they chose sides without speaking. Clint automatically took the one by the window and Phil the one by the door, and that was it.

They had dinner in the main dining room that evening and met their mark. They tailed him successfully throughout the evening and identified the HYDRA contact. They managed to plant their listening devices both on Brooks and the HYDRA crony, and bugged both their cabins, too. They stayed undercover throughout the next two days, gathering intel, and then got off the ship when it docked after the short, three day cruise with no one on board the wiser.

S.H.I.E.L.D. sent the appropriate information about Brooks to the D.E.A. and they arrested him without incident two weeks later. S.H.I.E.L.D. kept the bug going on the HYDRA operative and took out the base he was operating out of six weeks after the mission on the cruise ship. 

Clint and Phil were both on that secondary mission, and Clint sat up high with a bow and a quiver full of arrows like usual. They hadn’t been given an infiltration mission since the cruise ship, which was probably a good idea because Clint still couldn’t look Phil in the eye and hold his gaze.

That was okay, because Phil couldn’t seem to look at Clint, either.

It wasn’t necessarily anything either one of them _did_ on board the cruise ship – it was more the many things they _didn’t_ do. There had been one night, at dinner, when Phil had been laughing at a joke someone at their table had told. Clint had never seen Phil laugh like that before, head back and teeth glistening, and even though he knew it was part of their cover he couldn’t help the surge of tidal strength _want_ he felt watching Phil Coulson laugh. 

He should have smiled back and done something innocuous, like put his hand on Phil’s back or his shoulder or something, to ground himself and keep things looking natural. Only he hadn’t. He hadn’t been able to risk it. Phil was a smart cookie – the smartest Clint had ever met – and he would _know_ that Clint meant more in the simple gesture than just maintaining their cover.

So Clint hadn’t moved.

And now he still wanted to. 

Every time he saw Phil in the hallway, or sitting behind his desk, or chuckling with Sitwell in the mess – _every time_ – he itched to walk over there and put his hand on Phil’s back, or his shoulder, and squeeze, like he hadn’t had the guts to back at dinner that night on the cruise ship.

It wasn’t the only thing he wanted to do, either. There had been countless opportunities – except of course Clint had counted them – where he could have, maybe _should_ have, kissed Coulson to stay in character. In the hallway while their cabin was being cleaned and likely bugged, or at night while they lay in bed having “accidentally” killed all the bugs in their rush to get under the covers. 

But he hadn’t.

And now he wanted to.

_All the time._

It was worse than his stupid infatuation had been before the mission, too, because now Clint had a host of new images to add to his mental jerk-off folder. Phil relaxing by the pool, Phil sipping a martini at the bar, Phil sitting on their queen-sized bed, reading the paper. Images stacked upon images, nothing that should have been jerk-off material and yet every single piece of it _was_.

And Clint couldn’t stop referring to him as “Phil”.

Not even in his head.

He took to not calling him anything. It was “hey” or “yo” or “boss” when he had to, in the field. If Phil noticed, he gave no indication. In fact, he gave no indication that he felt _anything_ was amiss in their relationship, except that he avoided Clint in the halls, and always happened to be busy when Sitwell invited them both to his table in the cafeteria.

Clint tried not to let it bother him.

He mostly failed.

It got better with time, though. It had to. Clint didn’t want to request a different handler, and while he spent the first few weeks paranoid that Phil would throw him back into the general pool, that had never happened. So they were fine, they were going to be fine, and eventually they were. Clint still hesitated if he had to call Phil by name, but the default “sir” came easier and easier over time. Phil seemed to feel no compunction about calling him “Barton” anymore, and Clint wished he could close his eyes and summon that same control Phil obviously had and revert everything back to “Coulson”.

It wasn’t that easy for him.

Time passed, and the missions came and went. Clint had a few more infiltration jobs but never with Phil at his side. He was always in the van, or on the comms, and it was easier to have him there. Clint was used to Phil in his ear, keeping him grounded, and less used to Phil by his side. He saw better from a distance, after all, and it was easier to keep Phil in the proper place in his mind when he wasn’t sitting beside him on a rooftop, or writing reports at his desk. 

It was easier to keep the jerk-off images in their private box in the back of his mind if Phil was just a voice in his ear. Much easier.

Finally they landed the Black Widow job, and wasn’t that fun? Natasha proved to be an excellent addition to the team, and if, after she joined them, Clint sometimes missed the solo operations he’d once had with Phil, well, it was offset by the way Natasha made him feel like a whole person most of the time. She was like the sister he’d never had and never known he wanted, but now wondered how he’d ever lived without. She paired up with him on infiltration missions and kicked ass beside him when they were caught under fire, and Phil’s voice in their ears meant they always came home.

Even if Phil had to come in after them. 

It would have been easier, Clint often mused, lying in his bed at night with come drying on his stomach and Phil’s imagined voice in his ear, if he could just love Natasha that way instead. Easier if he could look at her and see more than a sister, even if she never returned his affections. Natasha loved him, but in her own way. She might even agree to have sex with him, if he wanted. Maybe. 

But he couldn’t help it – he was in love with Phil. He had been since the man shot him in the rain, and it had been cemented by his name scratched in black ink on a fake marriage license and the pair of golden rings Phil had shown up with before they boarded the ship.

Clint should have listened to Marissa from Legal and completed Form 42-D/86 as soon as he’d gotten back from the mission. It would probably have brought him closure, seeing Phil’s name there in black and white, ending this fictional marriage they had going. But Phil never mentioned it, and Clint had never asked to see the the form. He was avoiding Marissa after she and Sitwell had thrown them that “Congratulations, You’re Married!” party in the mess the day after they’d gotten back from Vancouver.

He still had the ring, too, and he probably should gotten rid of it already. He could melt it down or get a pretty penny for it at the “We Buy Gold!” shop across from the pizza place two blocks over, but he couldn’t do it. 

The ring wasn’t anything special, just a plain gold band that fit perfectly around his ring finger. It had been new, Clint could tell that much, but it was unmarked. A simple gold ring that meant nothing. And everything.

Phil had probably already sold his, or put it back in the pool agents picked from when going on undercover missions. Someone else was probably wearing the ring right now in Brazil or something, while Clint sat here and looked at his in the dark loneliness of his own apartment at night.

It was a depressing thought.

Clint kept the ring, anyway.

Things probably would have gone on in that vein forever, if not for Natasha. She secretly hated him, after all, and was actively trying to ruin his life, or so Clint was convinced. She couldn’t leave well enough alone. 

“You know he takes his ring out sometimes and looks at it, too.” Natasha told him one evening when they were playing poker and drinking vodka.

Clint ignored her because that was totally a bluff. Natasha played poker with Russian Rules, which meant she made them bet secrets instead of chips and only told Clint if they were true if he won the hand. It wasn’t the first time she had tried to bet with facts about Phil and then denied half of them when Clint collected his pot.

Natasha must have been desperate if she was pulling out the Phil card. Clint totally had her with his full house, eights high. Natasha was going _down_. 

She took his ass with a royal flush. Natasha was a dirty cheater.

“He does not,” Clint told her as he cleaned up the cards. He shuffled and dealt them each another hand. 

This one Tasha purposely lost. Clint stared at her when she folded and leaned back on her heels.

“He does too,” she told him. “I followed him home last night and checked. He keeps it in a box by his bed and he takes it out and tries it on and writes in his journal “Phil Coulson-Barton”.” 

Clint had to laugh at that, because Nat was totally shitting him. “He _absolutely_ does not.”

Tasha smiled. “No,” she admitted, “not that last bit. But he does keep the ring by his bed.”

Clint shrugged and dealt the cards. “It’s probably another ring. I’m sure he’s had to marry lots of agents in the line of duty. There’s a form, after all.”

“Rumor is he married Sitwell, once,” Tasha told him, collecting her cards. “Sitwell annulled it publicly the next day, posting the 42-D/86 on Coulson’s office door and commenting loudly that he didn’t want to get shot in the ass by a Barton Special for cheating with his husband.” 

“You are a lying liar who lies,” Clint told her pointedly. “You are taking lessons from Nick Fury, don’t think I don’t know this.”

Natasha grinned at him with all her teeth. “You’re just jealous about the Fury thing. And I’m not lying, ask anyone. It was while you were on that deep cover mission in Milan.”

Clint frowned at her, and then at his cards. A pair of fives. “You were on that mission with me, if I remember correctly. And Coulson was only gone for a day with Sitwell on – ” he trailed off.

Natasha nodded, and accepted another card. “On a top-secret mission with Sitwell, origin unknown, but suspected to be ordered by the World Security Council itself. He wouldn’t have left us in the field for anything else.”

Clint shook his head and took another card. “That doesn’t mean they got married, and if they did, it doesn’t mean that the ring he kept isn’t the one he used with Sitwell.”

Natasha scowled at him and laid out her cards. Two pair to his fives, damn it.

“Do you even remember what happened yesterday, Clint?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “I got out of medical. That is why we are playing poker instead of sparring like regular people, because you have romantic notions about the acceptable level of activity after a minor injury.”

Natasha was not amused. “You broke three ribs, punctured a lung, and were in a medically-induced coma for two days while they weaned you off the ventilator,” she told him. “You have a broken wrist and are currently wearing a cast that will not be removed for six weeks, no exceptions.”

Clint waved his arm with the – fucking annoying – cast around. “But I can still hold poker cards, so deal already.”

Natasha sighed and shook her head, but dealt the cards. They played for a few minutes in silence before she finally asked, “Is it so hard to think that he might care for you?”

“Yes,” Clint told her tightly.

“Why?”

Clint swallowed. “Because it opens a big fucking door, Nat. I’m already in love with the man, I don’t need any hope to cling to.”

“But what if it could lead to something lasting, Clint?” Natasha pressed him. “What if he’s someone you could really be happy with?”

“Whatever happened to your ‘love is for children line’, Agent Romanov?”

“You _are_ a child,” Nat smirked at him, “and Coulson is a romantic at heart.”

“It’s against regulations,” Clint told her flatly. “Even if he really felt something and you’re not totally shitting me, he would never go for it. So just drop it.”

Natasha held his eyes, but she shrugged and dropped it. She laid out her cards.

A royal flush. 

“Fuck me,” Clint groaned.

 

*

 

It wasn’t until Clint was walking back onto the Helicarrier, soot from New York still clinging to his clothes, belly too full with shawarma and guilt, that it came up again.

Fury was waiting for them on the deck of the Helicarrier. The ship was currently parked in New York Harbor, anchored out beyond the Statue of Liberty. Natasha had flown them back in the quinjet from the battlefield, Sitwell having come to pick them up and staying with a contingent of agents on the ground, taking a tally of the damage.

Phil hadn’t been with them. Clint tried not to think about that.

Fury ignored the rest of the team as they walked towards him. He stared at Clint.

Clint felt his stomach seize up, and the shawarma roiled threateningly. “What?” he asked.

“Coulson’s in medical,” Fury said to him. “It doesn’t look good.” 

Clint felt his knees give out.

Natasha caught him, because Natasha was awesome like that. Also because she seemed to be hovering nearby, like maybe she had known Fury was going to say that.

“ _Medical_?!” Stark demanded behind him, faceplate still ripped off the suit and his tone furious. “Don’t you mean the morgue?”

Clint staggered, even with Natasha to hold him, and Fury turned his one, blazing eye on Stark. “Medical managed to revive him,” he told Stark furiously, and then turned back to Clint. “You’re still listed as his medical proxy. The doctors are asking for you.”

“I’m on my way,” Clint said to him, then took off running for the medical ward. Natasha followed. From behind them, he could hear Stark yelling and Rogers’ steely voice overlapping Fury’s angry tone.

Clint didn’t bother slowing, knowing Natasha would hear. Agents darted out of their way, and Clint couldn’t blame them. He was just glad no one shot at them. “What the fuck happened?” he demanded as they ran.

“Loki,” Natasha told him succinctly, keeping pace with him. “Stabbed him in the back, from what I heard. Fury said they called it.”

“They _what_?!” Clint said, increasing his pace.

He didn’t have to look back to know that Natasha never blinked. “Fury lies,” she told him. “I wasn’t going to take you out of the battle until I knew for certain, and there was no way to know for certain while the battle was going on.”

Clint staggered again as they reached the medical bay. His body was exhausted, but the adrenalin was back, keeping him upright. He leaned against the door for a second, trying to fit more air into his lungs. “You still should have told me,” he panted at her.

“Maybe,” Natasha told him, unrepentant, and then opened the door. “Come on.”

Clint took a deep breath and followed her in.

Phil was indeed there, strapped to pieces of medical equipment Clint wished he didn’t know the name of. A ventilator and a chest tube – make that _two_ chest tubes, both connected to bags filled with what looked like blood – an O2 sat monitor and blood pressure cuffs. The entire ensemble blinked and beeped at him threateningly. 

The numbers looked stable though, so Clint spared a glance for the tired looking doctor standing by the nurses’ station. “Clint Barton?” she asked.

Clint nodded. 

“This is your husband?” she prompted him, and Clint stomach rebelled.

He swallowed acid. “I’m his medical proxy,” he said. 

The doctor looked satisfied. “Okay, I’d like you to stay and go over things. Your friend will have to leave though – we’re a little too full right now for visitors beyond immediate family.”

Clint opened his eyes and glanced around the medical bay, noting the other units filled with injured agents, all with blinking and beeping lights, all with medical staff hurrying around them. He felt even more sick. 

Behind him, Nat gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ll be outside,” she told him, and left.

Clint gathered his strength, like he had seen Phil do on countless occasions, most memorably that afternoon in the hotel room in Vancouver. “Tell me,” he told he doctor.

Half an hour later he was left standing by Phil’s bedside, thoughts and emotions and numbers swirling through his head. “Severe penetrating chest trauma” and “nicked the pericardial sack” interspersed with “the next forty-eight hours will be critical” and “move him off base, as soon as he’s stabilized”. 

Phil was lying there, too still in the bed. His hand was uncovered by the blankets, a tertiary IV stuck through it, obsolete now with the central line the doctors had placed sticking out of his chest. As if Phil didn’t have enough holes in him already.

Clint hesitated, then carefully put his own warm, bloodied hand over Phil’s. He squeezed it gently.

“It’s going to be okay, boss,” he told him, and then cleared his throat. “Phil. It’s going to be okay.” 

He hoped to hell it was.

 

*

 

Natasha made him leave once to shower, and another time to sleep. By then Phil had picked up pneumonia from the ventilator and the doctors were on edge, so Clint didn’t sleep so well before he was back. The antibiotics worked, though, and Phil kept rallying. Sooner than Clint had expected, he was off the ventilator and breathing with the help of a BI-PAP machine, the hiss and huff echoing strangely in the still-busy medical bay.

Most of the other agents had been moved to New York proper, or discharged over to step-down. A few had died. 

Clint made sure to learn their names before they were moved to the morgue. He knew two of them personally. Mendels and Jackson. Good men. 

Both had died from gunshot wounds, not arrowheads, but their blood was still on Clint’s hands. He had led the mercenaries into S.H.I.E.L.D. He had disabled the Helicarrier.

He still remembered it, all of it, though it was getting fuzzy around the edges. That was probably the exhaustion. Clint knew he’d keep those memories for years.

Phil finally stabilized enough that Clint let Natasha walk him to his quarters. She sat with him on his bed and wrapped her arms around him, accepting the physical touch this one time to give him the comfort he needed. 

Clint didn’t even remember passing out, but he woke four hours later with a scream in his throat. Natasha’s arms tightened around him, and she held him while he shook. Then she made him shower and led him back to medical, which had calmed enough now that she was allowed to stay with him. She rubbed his back while they watched Phil sleep, and they were there together when Phil finally woke up.

He blinked disoriented eyes at Clint, and then as if from far away, he smiled. 

“Clint?” he asked.

Clint nodded, blinking back tears as he moved to give Phil an ice chip. He sucked on it slowly, eyelids heavy, obviously fighting to stay conscious.

“Am I dead?” he asked, once the ice chip was gone.

Clint shook his head, and then cleared his throat and said. “No, Phil. You’re not. You’re going to be okay.”

Phil just looked at him, obviously not totally comprehending that, so Clint did what he had been wanting to do for the past four days, and brushed a hand over Phil’s hairline. “Shhh,” he told him gently. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay. We’ll look out for you.”

Phil nodded and closed his eyes. “Gl’d I’m not de’d,” he murmured as he drifted back to sleep. “Or you’d be de’d, too.”

Clint breathed out as Phil went under, then wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. 

“Come on,” Nat told him, tugging on his elbow ten minutes later. “He’s out for now. Let’s go get you some more sleep.”

Clint nodded and clung to her, and let her lead them back to her quarters. She tucked herself around him once more and pretended not to hear while he cried. Eventually, Clint fell asleep.

 

*

 

It took another four days until Phil was stabilized enough to be transported to the mainland, and Clint left his side only when he had to during that time. He held Phil’s hand while they moved him, white-knuckled, onto the transport. Despite their best efforts, the gurney shifted while they flew, and Phil grimaced every time he moved. 

He accepted the shot of morphine without question when they landed, which told Clint more than anything how much pain he was in. He passed out on the way to the hospital, but never once tried to remove his hand from Clint’s grip. 

A week later, Phil was allowed to sit up in bed, and had already been started on physiotherapy. Clint had been moved into Stark Tower at some point over the previous ten days; he wasn’t really sure when. Nat had moved his stuff though, so he supposed that was okay. She had moved Phil’s stuff too.

“The Agent’s Agent is going to need the best care if he’s going to recover enough to be our liaison and save us from the unending stupidity of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Stark said loudly, when Clint raised a questioning eyebrow at the mound of boxes in the empty suite.

“He’s going to be pissed if you touched his Captain America comics,” Clint told him, and Stark scoffed but looked a little white around the eyes. Clint grinned.

He helped Phil move in two weeks later, with the understanding that Phil’s physiotherapy would continue at the Tower, and he would submit himself for medical appointments twice weekly for the next two months. 

The elevator ride seemed to take longer than it should have, and the few steps to Phil’s new couch were endless. Phil had walked further around the hospital before being discharged, but that had been six blocks and half an hour ago, and Phil still tired quickly. 

Clint let him rest on the couch for twenty minutes before gently helping him move to the bed. He knew that as much as Phil wanted to pass out on the couch, he would sleep better on a real mattress. Even the couch did look ridiculously comfortable.

Clint got Phil settled and then busied himself around the room for a moment, looking things over as Phil lay there and caught his breath. His lung capacity was still reduced, but improving steadily. Clint’s hands trailed over the dresser and knick-knacks Nat had moved from Phil’s single bedroom apartment to his suite at the Tower.

They stuttered over the red jewelry box he found in the corner. Phil’s voice brought him back to himself.

“You can open it,” Phil told him, exhaustion heavy in his voice.

Clint shook his head and turned back to the bed. “It can wait,” he said.

Phil stopped him. “It’s waited long enough.”

Clint hesitated, but agreed. He twisted back and took the box, then joined Phil carefully on the bed. 

He opened it. It was the ring Phil had worn for those three short days in Vancouver. Clint recognized the rounded edges. 

“You kept it,” he said softly, trailing one finger over the gold. 

Phil nodded.

“And you made me your medical proxy,” Clint went on, licking his lips. He glanced once at Phil, then back to the ring. “Did you ever sign Form 42-D/86?”

Phil shook his head. “Did you?” he asked.

Clint swallowed. “No,” he admitted. He closed the lid on the box and put it on the night table, then turned back to Phil. “I kept my ring, too. I’d even put it on sometimes.” He smiled sadly. “Nat called me an idiot.”

“For putting it on?” Phil questioned.

Clint shook his head. “For not telling you I’d kept it,” he said. He looked at him. “She said I should have come forward about this years ago.”

Phil smiled, a small upturning of the lips. “Maybe,” he said. “I should have, definitely. But I didn’t want to push you into anything. I was still your handler.”

Clint nodded, his gaze turning far away. “I told Nat you would never go for it, even if you felt anything. Regulations.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to make you choose.”

Phil put a hand lightly on his wrist. “You thought you would lose if you did,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Clint swallowed, then shrugged. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Mostly I thought you only tolerated me. I can be a pretty big asshole.”

Phil’s face broke into a smile. “You can,” he admitted. “I like you that way.”

Clint stared at him. He couldn’t help an answering smile of his own. “Yeah?” he asked.

Phil shrugged, but his eyes were soft as they locked on Clint’s. “Yeah,” he said. Then his smile turned wicked. “It’s also not the only thought I’ve had about your asshole.”

Clint snorted, then let his head thunk down into the pillow. “Oh my god, Phil. That was terrible.”

Phil laughed quietly beside him, then stilled. Clint looked over to see his eyes already closing. “Sleep,” Clint said to him, gently resting a hand on his head again. Phil smiled at the touch without opening his eyes. “We can talk more in the morning.”

“You, Clint Barton, willingly talking about your feelings?” Phil murmured.

“Only for you, Phil,” Clint said as his handler drifted off to sleep. “Only for you.”

 

*

 

They did talk in the morning, and then they did a little more than talking, though less than they both would have liked. Phil was still pretty uncomfortable, and Clint was terrified about hurting him. They managed a few slightly less than chaste kisses, and Phil murmured into his mouth, “I’ve wanted to do this since we signed that damned marriage license.”

Clint smiled, and kissed him back lightly on the lips. “I’ve wanted to do this since you shot me in the rain,” he admitted. “I’ve found it really fucking hard not to since we signed that damned marriage license.” 

“So we both admit we were idiots?” Phil asked him, eyes soft as he watched Clint in bed. 

Clint shrugged, because honestly it didn’t feel that way. It mostly felt like luck that he had Phil beside him now at all. “We both admit that Natasha was right, and we should have talked about this earlier,” he said, and Phil snorted. 

“That will make her happy,” he commented.

“Oh, we don’t have to _tell_ her,” Clint told him. 

“Too late,” Natasha’s voice said to them from the vent above the bed.

Clint startled badly, and Phil cursed. 

“I taught you how to do that!” Clint yelled up at the vent, while Phil muttered dire things under his breath.

“And don’t you forget it,” Natasha called back. Clint flipped her off.

“Natasha is a dirty Russian,” Clint told Phil seriously as he helped him from the bed. 

Phil sighed, “All that’s left now is to tell the rest of the Avengers.”

Clint stared at him. “You want to tell Tony Stark we’re secretly married?” he asked incredulously.

“A Form 42-D/85 isn’t a true marriage,” Phil pointed out. He shrugged, then winced. “Even if it isn’t, I don’t want to keep this a secret anymore,” he admitted, and looked at Clint. “Besides, if we don’t tell him now, he’ll only find out in a few weeks with Jasper goes live with the information.”

Clint blinked. “Did you have an expiration date on a bet with Sitwell about your feelings?” he guessed.

Phil nodded, looking sheepish. “He gave me one month after I was no longer your direct superior to confess my feelings or he was going to do it for me. I can only hope he gave me time off for extenuating circumstances, or Stark will be getting the email any day now.”

Just then there was a thump from somewhere far off in the Tower, and JARVIS’s voice came online. “Agent Coulson, Agent Barton. I must inform you that Sir has begun canvassing the Tower for your whereabouts. Shall I lie and tell him you are currently unavailable?”

Clint really wanted to know how Phil had secured JARVIS’s affections. “No thank you, JARVIS.” Phil told him calmly. “Please inform Mr. Stark that we will be out momentarily – and please disable any confetti he has rigged to go off in the kitchen.”

“Very good, Agent Coulson,” JARVIS said to him, and Clint laughed into his hand. 

“Come on,” Phil told him, taking his arm and leading him from the suite. “Time to go face the music.”

“He’s going to play _Here Comes the Bride_ ,” Clint told him, grinning. 

“Probably,” Phil agreed with a smile in his eyes. “I nominate you for the bride.”

Clint stopped him before they got to the door, and leaned in for a kiss. “I love you, you know,” he told him.

Phil’s lips lifted in a smile as he kissed him back. “I love you, too,” he said as he leaned back. Then, he grinned. “Husband.”

Clint stuck out his tongue as he opened the door of their suite and ushered a still-limping Phil out of it. “I’ll carry you back over the threshold when we return,” he promised. “JARVIS can take pictures, and then we’ll see who the bride is.”

Phil snorted but didn’t say anything, and he actually _did_ let Clint gently carry him when they came back to the suite that evening. 

Six months later, they were officially married in a small, private ceremony on the top of Avengers’ Tower. Sitwell gave Phil away, while Nat solemntly escorted Clint to the altar. 

Fury officiated, and it was only mildly terrifying. Pepper cried, and Stark pretended not to, and Steve Rogers handed them their rings. They were the same rings Phil had bought for them in Vancouver, but they had each been etched with the image of a star and an arrow. Clint kissed Phil’s before slipping it on his finger, and Phil did the same. And when they walked down the aisle, Phil wasn’t limping at all.


End file.
